all those shadows almost killed your light
by maddieclaybourne
Summary: he's shaking him, voice cracking as he looks at him with pleading eyes, "bucky... buck, it's me, steve"/ or the before and the after of the winter solider's unmasking


_Author's Note: This is came from watching the Captain America: The Winter Solider teaser trailer a million times since it premiered yesterday._

**~*~all those shadows almost killed your light~*~**

Steve swallows, thickly, as he gripped his shield. He felt like he could still feel the limp weight of Natasha in his arms. That the edges of his most trusted weapon were searing hot from the raging flames that surrounded the two of them in the warehouse.

Thanks to the serum, he was able to get her to the hellicarrier where she received medical attention and was well on her way to being right as rain again.

Falcon's voice crackled through his earpiece shortly there after, _"What was it you told me, Cap? Gear up? You betta gear up. Thirteen pulled down a location on the Winter Solider."_

"What?" Sharon's amused tone stopped him in his tracks. "No fancy outfit, _Commander Rogers_?"

He doesn't blush as easily as he once did. He's [somehow] found his footing in this new century after the Battle of New York and joining **S.H.I.E.L.D.**, but he knows the hidden tenor in her cadence and he remembers [vividly] how her eyes flashed with _want_ at the sight of him in his new uniform. The uniform that had come with the title of Commander.

He turns and there she is; the standard agent uniform is _anything but_ on her lithe frame. He's subtle in his appraisal, his eyes flickering from her exposed neck [it's not zipped all the way, like Natasha and Maria Hill prefer theirs to be] to her pert breasts, the flare of her hips and the length of her legs.

"Disappointed, _Agent Thirteen_?"

"If I'm being honest, and that's what we're doing with each other _now_, isn't it? Being honest? Yes, I am."

"Funny, Kristin in Statistics didn't seem disappointed by my lack of uniform when I walked by her desk."

"I'm not Kristin in Statistics, am I?"

Images flash in front of Steve's blue eyes; flawless skin bared, inch by inch. Lace falling away, golden hair tumbling down exposed shoulders. Pink nipples coming alive with a press of his thumb. Teeth gnawing into a thoroughly kissed bottom lip.

His name keened in a way he never imagined would be possible.

The first time he whispered against her sweat slicked skin, after spilling inside of her, he called her Kate.

Just a few hours ago, he called her Sharon, and it was so much better.

"No," His tone is heady, his bright blue gaze holding her caramel. "You're not."

"I'll say this," Her tone matches his. "You were made to wear a pair of jeans."

"Are you two done?" Sam's annoyed voice cuts through the rising heat of the room.

In an instant the lust is gone from their faces. But before anyone can take another breath, a bullet cracks through the glass, each of them dropping to the ground within seconds. It's a warning shot, and they know it.

A silent _"watch sharon's back"_ passes between Sam and Steve as he rises to his feet, gripping his shield with renewed vigor. His eyes narrow and his lips purse. He's got the assassin known as The Winter Solider in his sights now. And while he isn't motivated by vengeance, he can admit – deep down – that he's been wanting this confrontation with the masked man ever since he first showed up on **S.H.I.E.L.D.'s **radar by blowing up the Federal Reserve building in Philadelphia.

Then he became the son of a bitch who was responsible for almost killing Natasha. After that he tried [and failed] to take out Director Fury with a car bomb.

And just seconds before he had fired a warning shot in the direction of his girl and his friend.

What had started in the streets of Philadelphia was ending in this abandoned building.

The Winter Solider may have had a head start, but that wasn't going to deter Steve. Bursting through the window, he ducked briefly as the glass shattered everywhere, and with all of his strength behind him, he threw his shield at the black clad figure.

Anticipating him being knocked down, he was left gaping when the man spun around and plucked his shield from mid-air. Dark eyes stared back at him, cold and lifeless. His face covered by a mask. His metal arm gleamed in the lights of the city behind him.

"Captain," His voice was gruff and a tinge of _something_ underneath called out to Steve. Like, he'd _heard_ it before. Like, it was something he _recognized_ from long ago. A relic of his past like Peggy's crisp Oxford English. Howard's staccato rhythm. Dum Dum's Boston accent.

"If I threw _this_, your precious shield," A gleam flashes in his eyes, highlighting a hunter green that makes the hero's stomach twist, it's something else he swears he's seen before. "At your girl," He spits and what he recognizes in his voice is stronger now.

His eyes go wide; immediately knowing what that something is. It's _Brooklyn_. All their intel tells them the Winter Solider is an assassin from Russia. But in this moment, he knows they're wrong. He's heard Russian before, and it's nothing like Brooklyn.

He's still talking, making his villainous threats, but Steve stopped listening. The wheels in his head are spinning, struggling to make sense of the man in front of him. Trying to discern his true identity, to see if he can figure out what lurks behind the mask and the imposing metal arm.

He looks back at his eyes, the only part of his face he can see, and his heart stutters in his chest.

He'd know _those eyes_ anywhere. Those were the eyes he'd see – rolling in is exasperation – when he wouldn't turn tail and run from the bullies who were constantly beating him up. They were the same eyes that looked at him like he was his savior when he found him tied to that metal slab, prone for HYDRA's scientists to experiment on him.

And they were the eyes, determined and steely, full of belief and honesty when he said with a set jaw and confidence, _"Hell no, that little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb to runaway from a fight, I'm following him._"

_Bucky._

Steve doesn't know what the hell he's doing.

All he knows is he _has_ to get that damned mask off his face and see for himself.

And suddenly, as he lunges at the man, all the pieces are coming together in his head. The way they fought each other in the Philadelphia streets. How each of their moves had been anticipated by the other, almost instantly. How the clench of his jaw when they were in the thick of it seemed so damned familiar. Just like the color of his hair, even though it was longer and more ragged.

Pinning the man to the ground, he rips the mask off his face, and he has his proof.

His best pal, the only one who believed in him _before_ he became Captain America, was the man **S.H.I.E.L.D. **wanted him to hunt down and eliminate. His best pal who was supposed to be dead after falling 30,000 feet from that train in Austria. His best pal whose fingers he'd clutched at desperately, but still wasn't able to save.

His best pal whose eyes – in that terrible moment – still haunted him.

At least when Sharon wasn't there to wrap her arms around his shaking body after he woke up from the nightmares he feared would never go away.

He can't stop himself, he reaches for him, grabbing him tight by the shoulders and shakes him vigorously, his voice cracking as he looks at him with pleading eyes, "Bucky... Buck, it's me, Steve..."

"What?" Natasha's ice blue eyes are briefly wild before seeping into their usual blankness just like her beautiful face. "James..." She breathes out her mentor's name, memories tinged in red, each entry inside her ledger coming alive in startling color. "Is," She swallows. "Alive?"

"You have no idea who he _really_ is do you?" Sharon, in the aftermath of The Winter Soldier's unmasking, had come to see Natasha. If anyone had the answers Steve so desperately needed, it would be her. What little information they had on him was that he had been connected to the infamous Red Room. Where a once little spider had grown into the deadly Black Widow.

"Who he _really_ is?" The redhead's eyes narrow. "What the hell does that mean?"

"James..." The blonde sighs, fingers threading through her hair. "Is James Buchanan 'Bucky' Barnes. First Sargent of the 108th platoon from Flatbush, Brooklyn that shipped out in 1941 for Europe. After being captured by HYDRA, he and his platoon were rescued by Captain America and then became the famous Howling Commandos, the Army's first integrated platoon. He was reported KIA after falling 30,000 feet from a train in the mountains of Austria during a confrontation with Johann Schmidt, HYDRA's head of weaponry aka The Red Skull. His body was never found."

"Cap..."

"Is desperate for answers. I thought you might have some. Obviously, you don't. At least not the ones Steve is looking for."

"James..."

"Remembers training you, his star pupil at Red Room, but he doesn't remember anything before that. It's, like, his memory's been wiped clean. Like, Bucky Barnes never existed. Only James."

"Cap's going to do anything to bring him back, to make him remember."

"I know. I just don't want it to break him. He still has nightmares about the fall, about how he lost his best friend and how he _couldn't_ save him."

"He's stronger than he even knows. He'll be fine. He survived being frozen for seventy years and finding his way in a whole new century. He has you and Falcon and, for what it's worth, even me to lean on."

"Good to know he still has you. Your partners and that means something to him."

"It means something to me too."

"What about cognitive recalibration?" Sharon teases, arms wrapping around Steve's waist, fingers slipping underneath his white t-shirt, drawing down the skin of his perfectly defined abs. He's destroyed more than a few punching bags and is in the process of catching his breath, his shirt clinging to his muscles in that obscene way and his hair flopping across his forehead too perfectly.

"What?" He asks, brows furrowing.

"What Romanoff did for Barton on the hellicarrier while he was still possessed by Loki's scepter; cognitive recalibration. You know," Her lips quirk, her fingers raising to dig into the density of his rippling pectorals. "Hitting him _really_ hard in the head."

"Buck," Steve huffs out a laugh, pulling Sharon's hands from underneath his shirt, turning her around so they're face to face. "Would get a kick out of that; me beaning him upside the head."

"So why not give it a shot? What's the worst that could happen? It's not like you have anything to lose."

"I don't have to worry about beaning him. Natasha, somehow, convinced him to have this experimental surgery to try and get his memory back. He thinks she's Natalia Romanova, the girl she used to be during her Red Room days, but he trusts her and he's doing it for her. Hopefully this will bring him back."

"And Sam told me talking to her wouldn't work. Ha."

"Do I want to know?"

"What's that supposed to mean? Obviously, nothing bad happened. Romanoff and I are both in one piece and without even the most minor of scratches. Just because we'll never braid each other's hair and have pillow fights, doesn't mean we can't get along for a common cause. Even if that does happen to be you."

"Does that mean you're trying to be friendly with her?"

"I wouldn't go _that_ far. And just to be fair, she hated me first. I was always ambivalent toward her until she found out Fury and Paige were sending me undercover as your neighbor to keep an eye on you, then I was suddenly the enemy."

"Because you're not protective about Sam." Steve teased, full lips blooming into a smirk.

"Sam...Ugh, okay, so I am protective about Sam, but can you blame me?" Sharon pouted. "He's my partner and more importantly my friend. If I don't watch his back, who will?"

"That's how Natasha feels about me."

"I believe the proof of how Romanoff feels about you is finally starting to heel."

"Bucky's about to go into surgery; will you hold my hand? I know Natasha will be there, but I need _you_, Sharon."

"Do you even have to ask? Whenever you need me, Steve, that's where I'll be."


End file.
